From the moment the artist Freya Harrison stepped into David Baracchi’s lab her mind was abuzz – and not just because bumblebees were everywhere.

“I was amazed by everything, overwhelmed by all that knowledge,” said Harrison, 28, an illustrator. “I’d never been in a lab before. And the more I learned the more the ideas kept coming.”

The outcome, several months later, is an impressive comic strip, 2.5 metres wide, which tells the affecting, gently amusing story of – as she sees it – the oppressive life of a lab bumblebee yearning to be free. The bee might, or might not, be addicted to nicotine, a natural molecule of nectar, which is one of the things that Baracchi, 31, is researching.

Across London, 15 other pairs of artists from a range of disciplines and neuroscientists, mainly from Queen Mary University of London, in the East End, and University College London, have been collaborating with the aim of bringing the remarkable, often hidden and unsung, work of scientists out of the lab and into the public imagination.

The 16 original artworks of Art Neuro go on display for the first time from 6-9 November at the Rag Factory, off Brick Lane, east London.

The fascinating exhibition includes interactive optical illusions; a modern take on Hogarth’s Gin Lane exploring addiction; ceramics that magnify the molecules responsible for Alzheimer’s disease; a flashing installation that represents the human brain; and an interpretation by an erotic photographer of the way babies’ brains change in the first few weeks of life.

The principle brain behind Art Neuro is Supatra Marsh, 27, a skin biologist and PhD student at the Blizzard Institute, which is part of Queen Mary.

“I wanted to spark the public imagination and didn’t want to communicate in the usual way,” she said. As a practitioner of life drawing herself, Marsh knows there are many parallels between the way artists and scientists work. “Both are creative; both have to think outside the box; both try to make sense of the world.”

Kate Hughes, one of the artists, said: “There’s an assumption often made that scientists and artists are different species – for me, we’re both problem solvers, enquiring minds exploring a common humanity and trying to communicate what we’ve discovered.”

The flashing brain installation built by Paz Martinez Capuz and Henry Flitton.

Graphic artist Paz Martinez Capuz, 25, from Valencia in Spain, was paired with Ruth Angus who is researching traumatic brain injury. “The thing that got me really excited was the beauty Ruth found in her scans,” she said. “The first time I saw those images I couldn’t believe it was a brain. The texture and colours were so stunning it looked like a part of the moon or some planet. That inspired me straight away.” She built her flashing brain installation with the expert help of digital designer Henry Flitton.

Art Neuro, funded by Queen Mary University of London, University College London and the Society of Biology, will also be hosting interactive events and workshops where visitors can learn about the brain through live experiments, knitting, screen-printing, poetry and mixology.

There will be a public preview with introductions from the collaborators on 6 November (6pm-10pm), then the exhibition runs until 9 November (10am-10pm).